Friends Of A Sort
by Wanderlustlover
Summary: Ivanova's father is dead, and Talia is in the way again.


Title: Friends, Of A Sort  
Rating: G  
Spoilers: _'Born To Purple'_  
Disclaimer: Inspired by "Touch" by **leyenn**

Excuse: Yep, it's much too long. By about six hundred words. I'll probably write another one actually for _'Born To Purple'_ at the right length, but this just popped into my head thinking about writing for this group, so I'm posting it here and saying it's not made for the challenge stuff.

Normals. 

That's what they call them back in Teep Town. At least it's one of the more polite things. And they're taught that they're better than these _normals_. That they are superior to these _normals_ from the moment they are born, and that all generations after them will continue to be. That they are Homo-Superior. The next link in the evolutionary chain.

She's never quite believed she was superior to anyone.

Especially not because she could read their thoughts.

That's just another reason for people to avoid her. If they are truly superior to humans - which genetically they still are, too; human - why are they a minority in a world of minorities? Why are they hated and feared by the others of their race? Why are they raised alone in places with high fences, thick walls and locked gates?

These are question she doesn't ask. Things she shouldn't let herself wonder.

Because they lead to more questions she doesn't have answers for. That no one would answer for her. You're taught not to ask questions in the Psi-Corps. The Corps is Mother, The Corps is Father, and when it is your time to learn something more, they will tell you.

She's not quite sure she likes this either, but she doesn't question it. 

That's why she jumped at the chance to work on Babylon 5. She puts on a brave face when people scurry from her presence. She holds her bottom lip stiff when people yell in her face. She's used to those reactions of hate and fear. After all, they've been happening since she was first discovered.

To tell the truth, it's all worth it now.

Because she's dreamed of this everyday since she was a little girl staring up at the sky thrown wide above her. Being out among the stars, touching a million different lives and being able to help them with her gift.

So she puts on the raven dark gloves every morning and runs her fingers over the gold and silver pin that she attaches to her breast with affection. They may not always be perfect, like most parents, but these are the people who granted her dreams. She goes to her appointments with the type of excitement that children exude and only just manages to keep that truth buried deep inside her heart.

She's had appointments where she settled trade agreements. She's had meetings where treaties were signed by warring solar systems. Today - she'd gotten to negotiate for the Narn and Centauri today, even. As a reward for the work the Commander himself had taken her out to the Fresh Aire tonight, her first excuse to dress up since arriving at the station. 

Everything seemed perfect.

Almost.

Walking home after saying goodnight to the Commander, who'd asked her to call him 'Jeff' over dinner as a boon of friendship, she'd spotted the one thing that actually wasn't going according to plan.

The figure was sitting at one of the bars, fingers resting spider-like round the edges of a shot glass of clear liquid. Back straight as a line and hair, the darkest brown, knotted delicately into a tight braid down the line of her spine. A tremor ran through her, and those fingers clutched the shot glass, sliding down to bring it to her lips.

The clear liquid was gone in a second and a hand set the glass down next to a collection of others. Fingers dabbed at unseen eyes, as though wiping away dust and not half formed tears before calling to the bartender and holding another finger up.

The grief that came off that drinking figure ripped through her body, making tears run down her cheeks. Her own heart felt as though someone has ripped it into a million pieces, and then each of those piece ripped into a million, until each piece were smaller than dust and scattered upon the wind uncaring.

The tears fell as she stood there in the walkway littered with people pushing around her, surrounded by a cacophony of sound and a tunnel of silence that seemed to center on only that figure. She hadn't been trying to read the woman drinking; not even just to peek. That grief was just such a strong and centered emotion that it washed everything else around her away. There was no joy, no release in that agony, only a soul-shattering pain that enveloped her heart.

Wiping away tears and walking shakily, thinking her feet just might not hold her under the weight of that heartbreak, she approached just as the bartender placed the latest drink down, asking if she'd had enough yet. She willed her voice not to be shaky or breathy, when she looked at him and said; "I'll get that one."

The woman looked up at her, with wild eyes, tiny clear jewels of tears on her lashes only making her eyes seem that much brighter. Those eyes narrowed and she could feel just beyond her own awareness where the pain shifted, malleable and in need of release, toward annoyance and anger. Perhaps, even towards fear, but she wasn't trying to read anything but those eyes fixed on hers.

"What are you doing?"

That voice was slurred, most likely by the other eight or ten shot glasses sitting on the counter about five inches from the newest, full one. She'd turned back to looking down into her drink, putting her profile as the only glimpse of herself now. Fresh, pale skin framed by that dark, chestnut hair. Just looking at her brought a warm flush throughout Talia's body, completely uncontrollable and unstoppable.

"You looked like you could use a friend," she offered, gently. Triying not to hit herself over the head for sounding hopeful, for letting herself be hopeful that Susan would let her stay and talk to her.

Those slim, pale fingers were back to tracing the rim of the shot glass again. It seemed hypnotic watching them go around and around. "I'm not your friend."

The bitter pain in that voice was humbling, and even though the words hit home, she knew that this bitterness was not her fault, this time. It was simply how this woman felt at this moment and it was something she was surprised the whole station couldn't feel.

"I know," she said too hastily, as she placed a hand on the bar top. "But I was hoping-"

"That what? We could be friends? Busom companions?" she said with the haze of the alcohol going down her throat and through her body, cutting off the sentence in play. The silence when she ended the sentence was deafening. "You're the enemy. You're - the badge and the gloves and everything Psi Corps represents. You're the enemy."

"I-" she stopped and started, feeling her own voice grow weak. Tears filled her eyes. Tears urged on by the pain in her mind from the woman next to her and pain sprouting from her own heart at those words. She swallowed, trying to push the burning heat at the edges of her eyes away, and taking a step back. "I'm sorry for interrupting you."

"My father died today," the woman said, her voice slurring more, before she could leave and just as the bartender walked back up. The woman looked at the glass still in her hand, at the small collection of glasses next to her, and then at the bartender as she placed the newest empty one in with the rest.

"One for me," she stated, and then added haphazardly with a shot of ironic sarcasm in it, "And one for my _'friend'_."

Her head swimming, she didn't even move or think to breathe. She'd said goodbye to her parents a long time ago, before being picked up by the Corps. Sure, they encouraged reintegration and vacations for a while, but then the differences become apparent and it wasn't so much like going home anymore, but going somewhere that looked familiar and felt foreign.

"You do drink, right?" The woman was learning almost too far back on her stool, having turned around. "This is Russian Vodka. Straight. It's the only thing I drinking. And if you're staying, it's the only thing you're drinking, too. Got it?"

She blinked, blue eyes awash with confusion and secondly with fear. She wasn't a drinker and she feared becoming so drunk she'd simply announce she was enamored with this woman in front of her. That she'd do literally anything at this moment to make her smile and stop radiating miles of pain, but most of all she feared saying she might have fallen in love with her the first moment she laid eyes on the Lieutenant she was to report to.

Her voice was as shaky as her gloved hands when she began to sit on the stool, and all she could manage to breath out with the air that has escaped her body was, "I - uh, yes, I think I can manage."

And in that moment, she wished she were normal, because then maybe this would all be easier.


End file.
